I recently saw a picture of myself from 2001 at a christening for my nephew. It was just prior to my realization that I had let myself fall into unacceptable weight gain and, knowing the facts behind weight control, set out to slowly lose what I could. The picture showed a 235+ pound man wearing a blousy button-up shirt that he thought could hide the fat. It saddened and angered me all at the same time because I’m not sure, at the time, I’d ever truly realized where I’d been back then. The good news is I made the change in my late 20s, and now at 32 weigh in somewhere near 180-185 with some more weight to lose, but with no fear of gaining it back. There’s a new lease on life that makes me want to be active, constantly full of energy and wanting to help others feel the same passion for living I bought myself in the past five years.
The reason for this story isn’t a plea for “good for you” comments. There’s a far more important story to tell.
Friday was Midnight Madness, and not having to be part of it this year, I decided to get Mary and head in to see it. There was a nice set up and we decided to head by a local restaurant run by a friend of mine. Part of a healthy lifestyle is to enjoy something you shouldn’t from time-to-time, to keep yourself in check and shock your metabolism a bit, so I had no problem enjoying a hawaiian burger and a small draught. All was well as we left to head back to the festivities.
As we left we noticed a small commotion by the cashier where one employee was on the phone with an anxious customer in front of him. I picked out the words “ambulance” and “heart attack” while paying, and glanced around the restaurant. In the corner I saw a man who was likely 50-60 pounds overweight resting in the corner, his face bright red and streaming with sweat. He was dabbing the sweat away while people surrounded him doing nothing because there was nothing that could be done. He spoke in a very high, hushed voice while trying to gather breath, waiting for an ambulance to come and take him away. To this moment I have no idea if he’s ok or what the status is, and I hope to find out soon.
Folks, for all the talk we do and have done about healthy eating and such I’m not trying to preach you into submission. Watching a man suffer a heart attack simply because he’s eaten whatever he wanted can change things. Everything in moderation is bull; we live in a world where truly bad things are fed to us by a Government who could care less what we ingest. We need to take more conscious control of what goes in our bodies, and we need to start now. Don’t tell yourself you can start tomorrow, our obituaries are littered with men and women who thought they’d lose weight tomorrow.
Take care of yourselves.
Time for an official comment on this rather than just small remarks on the zonk.
As much as I agree with your ideas about caring for our bodies and living a healthy lifestyle, I’m with Shady that you lose me after the word “moderation”.
First. I would like the state that you are really jumping to conclusions when you say that this man’s heart attack was due to an unhealthy lifestyle. I personally have 2 people in my life go through heart attacks, both very severe. The first was a client at work who was about 140lbs and lived a healthy lifestlye; walking daily and eating right. He suffered a stress realated heart attack and almost died. The second was a close friend of mine that was probably the most healthy person I ever knew. He was an incredible athlete and very strick on what he ate. He suffered a fatal heart attack do to a heart condition he didn’t know he had. So lets not jump to conclusions about the cause here.
Now onto the more important point.
Although I believe in living a healthy lifestyle I don’t agree with shoving my beliefs down other peoples throats. These days information on healthy living is readily available to anyone that seeks it. So if people choose to ignore it, that is their decision. And before you throw your arguement that I pay for their surgeries with my taxes thats too bad. This is the system we have established in Canada so until that changes I will accept it. I do wish everyone would live a healthier lifestyle, but I believe more in a persons right to choose what they can and can’t do. Companies offer these products because people ask for them. No company has ever sold something that people didn’t want. And as far as the government is concerned there are not here to police the country, but the facilitate what the people ask for. If tomorrow there was a change of heart in this country and we wanted to outlaw all things harmful to our bodies, then all the power to the government to put a stop to it. Until then I will continue to make the choices that are right for me and leave others to do the same.
With all due respect EVERYONE underestimates how bad the food we eat is. Most people don’t know what high fructose corn syrup is, nor what it does to your system. Most people don’t know that fast food restaurants soak their lettuce in chlorine bleach to make it last longer. Most people think they can eat “everything in moderation” when our own Government – who allow companies to manufacture things with almost no standards – claim the only safe level of trans fat ingestion is none.
Is this information available? If you seek it out, but most people assume what they eat is merely unhealthy on a weight level, not unhealthy on a long-term side effects level. As noted many times, if I wish to ensure readers of my site know this, I will continue to discuss it. If you dislike my “preaching” I’ll remove your computer chair shackles and allow you freedom to roam elsewhere.
To your other point, yes, I acknowledge there are people with congenital heart defects who die of their disease. The same story people tell me about how George Burns smoked every day of his life and lived a long life, or how everyone has heard of a long-distance runner with 0% body fat who died young. It’s easy to find exceptions to a rule, but the point is our world has gotten drastically more unhealthy in the past 25 years, and to put blinders to it and not realize there’s a problem is folly. I’m not demanding you agree with me, but I am saying that North Americans are vastly unhealthy eating almost the same things they did 25 years ago. What changed?